Is This Lobster Real or Photochopped?

Yahoo news is carrying a story under Odd news showing the following lobster and the claim is it is real something like a one in 50 million chance. What do you think? I tend to think it is a fake, the division of the colors from right to left are just too well defined and straight.




AP Photo

I'm no expert, but it looks pretty real to me. Even though it looks a bit strange.

I say we cook it up, and see whether it tastes real or not. lol

it is real lobsters have red,yellow and blue pigment in them and lobsters develop each side individualy in the case of this lobster it only developed red and yellow pigment on the left side that is why it doesnt look greenish on both sides, it is also very rare to find an all blue lobster.
kinda funny though the lobster looks half baked ( or half boiled lol ).

Nah it can't be real.

I doubt mother nature would have such a clean division of the sides. I would tend to think it would be blended if you will for the lack of a better turn.

Originally posted by shots
I doubt mother nature would have such a clean division of the sides.

Yea, but on the other hand, who are we to say what mother nature can do.

Just when we think no way , she throws us for another loop.

You mean Mother Nature couldn't make lobsters like these?




Or these?

Most lobsters are colored a mottled dark greenish brown. In rare cases, a lobster of a different color (colormorph) appears. Exotic lobsters in shades of blue, white, yellow, black, and red have been reported from time to time since the earliest lobster harvests. Perhaps the most unusual colormorphs are the "calico" lobsters appearing as marbled black and orange/yellow; or "half-and-half" lobsters with a line straight down their backs where two colors meet.

Calicos and half-and-halfs are hatched that way and they stay that way (until cooked!) because the basic color pattern in lobster shells is inherited just like the color of hair in humans and other mammals.

However, some of the blue, brown, green, red, and black tones can be genetic or they can have other causes. In some instances lighter/darker shades can be influenced by diet, sunlight, and bottom type. For example, if you put a blue lobster in a holding system and its color becomes normal over a period of time, that lobster is undoubtedly not a 'igenetic blue." It was probably blue as a result of a dietary deficiency.

Lobsters get their characteristic color, not only from genctics, but, also from the foods they eat. A natural-colored lobster fed a diet of squid will turn blue. A lobster deprived of all prey that eat phytoplankton (floating plantlike critters) appears pale blue.

www.lobsters.org...

Real, caught in Dyer's Bay off Stuben, Maine. Not the first either, but very rare.

It looks as if only half of it has been cooked.

Cooking them make them turn red, THEY are not red in the wild.

Actually there HAVE been live red lobsters found.

There are always stories about people "from away" who, accustomed to seeing their lobsters cooked, are horrified by the color of a living lobster. They are sure it must be moldy. A live lobster is greenish-black on top and orange below, with accents of blue on the joints of its claws. That is because a lobster's shell is composed of three pigments: red, blue, and yellow.

When one or more of these pigments are missing at birth, a lobster may be red, blue, albino (white), or calico (dark with yellow spots). Blue lobsters occur once in every 3-4 million lobsters. Red lobsters (live ones) occur once in every 10 million. Except for albinos, all the color variations of lobsters turn red when they are cooked.

www.gma.org...

One in every ten million .. Ok, alomst never.

[edit on 16-7-2006 by SpittinCobra]

Looks like half of it's been boiled.

Harsh.

the lobster probably have the chimera, yes that is a medical term, tetragametic chimerism to be exact....lol i saw this on the health channel, and it hit me...

well my mind is pretty vague when it comes to the process, so i got good ol' wikipedia to help me out on this one...

" It occurs through the fertilization of two ova by two spermatozoa, followed by the fusion of the zygotes and the development of an organism with intermingled cell lines. This happens at a very early stage of development, such as that of the blastocyst. Such an organism is called a tetragametic chimera as it is formed from four gametes — two eggs and two sperm. Put another way, the chimera is formed from the merger of two fraternal twins in a very early (zygote or blastocyst) phase. As such, they can be male, female, or hermaphroditic." - wikipedia

What the heck does this have to do with the lobster, well if chimera becomes a hermaphoroditic then it will have two sets of skin pigment colors in a pattern form. So if the lobster has chimera it could have to sets of skin pigments and be split in half like that......lol wow..sorry its long and sorry i dont have any pictures

I'm no expert on this but it could be what they refer to as a "chimera". Recently a baby was born half black/white with a perfectly straight line down its torso. It was also half boy/girl and they were calling it a "chimera" and were amazed. I thought it meant some kind of mythical beast though. I can robably find the video of this if anyone's interested.

Can you post a picture of said baby?

I have a hard time believing a baby was born half black and half white.

hey, naysayers -

"nature never draws a straight line"

a proven fallacy.

Hey, I found a blue one! Yay! What do I win??

Originally posted by 25cents
hey, naysayers -

"nature never draws a straight line"

a proven fallacy.

Could'nt be photoshopped, too hard.

[edit on 7/16/2006 by Mechanic 32]

There are really blue ones, nothing rare there.

How about if one of us produces Xeros's black/white one?

Although, notice the blue one is another example of a "half and half". One side of the shell is a light blue and the other almost a normal dark color.

Half and half lobsters are not hermaphrodites, or chimeras. It's a genetic mutation, and they're perfectly normal lobsters.

This lobster, though, has no blue in half of its shell, she said.

Bernard Arseneau, a former manager at the oceanarium's lobster hatchery, said lobsters also have a growth pattern in which the two sides develop independently of each other.

www.boston.com...




[edit on 7/16/2006 by Zaphod58]

Originally posted by Zaphod58
Although, notice the blue one is another example of a "half and half". One side of the shell is a light blue and the other almost a normal dark color.

he photoshopped that picture.